Falling Prey
For lostinapapercup
From in_the_blue
Title: Falling Prey
Fandom: Dragon Age: Origins
Rating: R
Author's Notes: Behind the scenes, a different kind of battle is being waged and Kallian Tabris has some difficult decisions to weigh.
The one thing she couldn't get over regardless of how many ways she rationalized it (it wasn't his fault, he couldn't help it, feeling this way made her no better than those who had oppressed her own people for centuries, it was an old preconceived prejudice, he had the misfortune of being born that way, and so on and so forth) was that Alistair was human. She had to go back very far in her memories to even begin to try to find a time when that wouldn't have mattered to her. As deeply as she looked, she couldn't locate a time and place where it didn't matter. The memory of her wedding day was still too fresh, still too pointed, still too painful. That she hadn't wanted to marry was irrelevant. That Nelaros was probably a good person -- that he had died trying to protect her -- was irrelevant too. The one thing she couldn't shake from her thoughts was the memory of Shianni surrounded by human men (if they could be called that and not animals), roughed up in every possible way, clothes torn, fear and hatred mixed with shame and despair in her eyes. They had treated her cousin like a dog. No, worse than a dog: they had treated her like dirt.
Every time she looked at Alistair she saw Arl Kendells' son. So entitled, laughing at what he and his cronies had done to Shianni. Her cousin asked to keep it between the two of them once Vaughan and the rest had been sent back to be reckoned with by the Maker. She asked it as if she was somehow less of a person or somehow responsible for what those human bastards had done to her. That, Kallian knew, was the moment she had truly become a fighter. It wasn't the knives and secret training Cyrion begged her to keep to herself. That was just icing on the cake. No, it was seeing the pain her cousin was in. How could any elf ever be expected to trust a human after that? How could any female elf ever be expected to look into the face of a human male and not blame him for the actions of every single one of his kind?
While it was certainly true that Alistair was one of the more humble human males she'd met, it didn't excuse him his birthright. Duncan and King Cailan were human too. They had treated her well in their short time together, and for the first time in her twenty-two years she actually found herself wondering if it was possible for a human to be a decent person. Here, after all, were two or possibly three of them. But she put it down to the grit of war, to the impending battle. Surely the other shoe would drop. Surely once they'd won at Ostagar, she would become the elven Grey Warden instead of just the Grey Warden. She expected it: there were always ulterior motives where humans were concerned. They just didn't treat elves -- or anyone else, for that matter -- as equals.
The debt of gratitude she owed Duncan for not turning her in to the Arl's men hung by a very slim thread indeed. Two of their number had not survived the Joining, one at the wrong end of Duncan's own blade, and every moment she expected the same treatment Ser Jory had received. Once Duncan and Cailan were gone (and despite the horror of that, she wasn't entirely surprised they'd been betrayed by yet another human), she expected the same betrayal from Alistair.
That moment never came. Oh, they'd had their differences and while no one could accuse her of having an undeserved chip on her shoulder, she still waited for him to start treating her the way human men always treated female elves. They were commodities, toys, playthings, slaves. It was Alistair's stubborn insistence on deferring to her as an equal that slowly, slowly started opening her eyes to the possibility that it might just be time to revisit the old ingrained prejudices, at least on a case-by-case basis.
In her defense, she held strong to the fact that she'd never lived outside the alienage. In the dark of night when she stood watch at camp, she looked in on a sleeping Alistair to see his arms curled around his backpack like a child seeking solace from its only stuffed animal, and felt a definite pang of something.
*
When it came, the betrayal took an unexpected form. How odd that it would be one of her own and yet not one of her own. She'd never met anyone from far-away Antiva and all she could say was that if that was the best their land had to offer, the Crows were going to have to rethink their strategy.
It might have come as a shock to a privileged human, but elves were used to begging, borrowing, stealing, and bartering for what they wanted; it was simply their way of life and the assassin was most definitely an elf. He may have been gifted with a glib tongue and humorous self-effacement, but the offer he made was decent enough. Maker knew they needed all the help they could get. Morrigan, whose opinion she valued more often than not, didn't approve of the decision to let the Antivan elf live and Alistair hated it from the very moment it happened, but those concerns were duly noted then set aside. Would she watch her food and drink? No more than she had before. As much as anybody else, she believed in the pacts thieves made with one another. There was honor there, and like any other elf, Zevran would not swear a blood oath lightly. He appeared to have no regrets about killing anyone or anything; that alone was enough to rate him highly in her book. There was also the matter of his seeming openness: he had no qualms about exposing the murder plot. Yes, this elf was a true mercenary, and those were rare enough to find. His priorities were transparent enough: he simply wanted to live and that was one thing she understood intimately.
In their very next battle she held back just enough to watch him in action and, true to his word, he not only dispatched the Darkspawn effectively and efficiently with a grace she rarely saw, but he did so in a way that protected her, protected Alistair, and protected Morrigan. The others might not have noticed, but not much in battle escaped her eyes. Afterward, as they washed the blood and gore away in a nearby stream, stifling her laughter became its own task as she listened to the nonsense Zevran spouted at Morrigan. He had the witch's measure quickly enough; she'd missed that overt elven confidence and flirtatiousness. War was serious business and defeating the Darkspawn and ending the Blight of paramount importance, but who was to say that had to come at the expense of a little bit of fun? Who determined that all humor had to be cast aside in the name of glory, the Grey Wardens, and Ferelden? Not her. And clearly, not Zevran.
It didn't take long to realize he had everyone's measure quickly enough, her own included. Forewarned and forearmed, she took it upon herself to return every bit of it, tit for tat, step for step. Her cousins in the alienage would be the first to insist that she had never shied away from playing with fire, but here in the midst of the battle no fire had ever burned with quite so much style as Zevran's.
*
Human though he was, she couldn't help but feel for Alistair. He'd pinned so much hope on meeting his sister. He was fixated on it to such a degree that she couldn't hold it against him when he didn't even acknowledge how dangerous it was for her to step foot back in Denerim. Goldanna was (to put it bluntly) a bitch, and while the encounter really didn't stand a chance of ending well -- this was her home town and she knew the propensities of its citizens -- the unbidden pang she often felt when she considered Alistair took root in her gut at that moment and refused to let go. It grabbed her and like the finest flattery played on the sympathies she couldn't seem to cast aside so readily.
What would Shianni say, she wondered? She could just imagine the conversation. Once her cousin knew she had a soft spot for a human, the teasing would be merciless. There would be bottles of brandy involved -- with Shianni there always were -- and giggling and imaginations run wild far into the night. She missed her cousin; she missed home. Walking the streets of Denerim with renewed purpose, she faltered at the closed and locked alienage gates, powerless to help and feeling truly excommunicated for the first time. Up until then the whole thing had been an adventure, albeit a dangerous one. Yet she had enjoyed privileges none of her alienage cousins knew or were likely ever to know, and for that she felt no small measure of regret.
And Alistair was so crestfallen over Goldanna. All his sister wanted was money; that much was obvious. There was no kinship there, no warmth, not even any interest and he looked so downtrodden and unhappy. The thought now you know how it feels to be so unimportant and so taken for granted never had the privilege of seeing the light of day; for once she held her tongue. Too much: there had been too much pain, too much unhappiness, and too many dashed hopes.
"Here," she told him as casually as she could. "Take this." Steering him away from his sister's home, she pressed the amulet, cracked and lovingly repaired, into his far-too-big, far-too-clumsy, far-too-human hands. He looked down at it, awestruck, before turning his gaze to her with the eyes of a sad puppy.
"This... is my mother's amulet. Why isn't it broken? Where did you find it?"
She explained then about the desk in Arl Eamon's study, ashamed she hadn't given it to him straight away but Maker bless him, recriminations never once seemed to cross Alistair's mind. Instead he marveled that the Arl had found it, repaired it, and kept it. The largely unspoken conclusion he arrived at -- that he must actually have meant something to Eamon after all -- nearly broke her heart and in that moment she realized that Alistair, human flaws and all, was at heart no different from anybody. He was sad, lonely, and forgotten and even his humble insistence that he was used to people not listening when he went on about things was almost more than she could bear.
Yes, she remembered him talking about the amulet. No, she had yet to share with him any similar stories from her own childhood: who was the more imperious one here after all? If she swallowed her pride, would she be willing to learn the lessons he was so unwittingly teaching her?
Yes -- no. No. Maybe she'd be more accepting after the next fight. Maybe after they'd gathered the allies beholden to them by the ancient treaties, there would be time for lessons. Maybe the next time they were alone together in camp, away from the watchful eyes of Wynne, so full of judgment. At least her dog didn't care. His love for her was unconditional, and that was the way she liked it. Her come on, let's go kill some Darkspawn merited Dog's happy bark, rolled eyes from Wynne, and a self-conscious titter from Alistair. She'd never before met a man who giggled so much free of the influence of alcohol.
*
Conventional wisdom in the alienage was that opposites attracted one another. That, she thought, was why her father arranged her marriage to Nelaros, who had seemed about as different from her as he could be. There hadn't really been time to explore that before Vaughan's men slaughtered him. Would she have grown to love him? Would they have been merely companionable as husband and wife? Would she have left him far behind? She would never know, although for surprisingly sentimental reasons, she still carried his wedding ring among her possessions. Her personal belief had always been that like attracted like. The elves she'd befriended had been most like her: brash, outspoken, unafraid, cocky. She'd grown up hearing stories of other elves like that. Not the ones in the alienage, so many of whom seemed resigned to their lot as subservient to humans, but the ones who roamed freely throughout the lands, going where they pleased, doing what they wanted. These were the Dalish, whom she considered to be the original rogues of legend.
Zevran had met and traveled with the Dalish. Although he considered himself Antivan first, he was Dalish by birth and bore their artistry on his face as proof. Watching him move, she wondered how much of his grace was innate and how much (if any) had come from the time he spent wandering with their forest brethren. He was all rogue, Zevran, liberal with compliments and pretty words that could as soon seduce as backstab. It didn't take long for his flirtation to become legendary in camp, much to the chagrin of most of the party members. The one thing that told her it was mere style rather than intent was the way he needled both Wynne and Morrigan mercilessly; there were times she found it impossible to keep from smirking if not laughing outright. Sharp wit was an elven trait, and Zevran was master of that. Everything about him spoke of casual acceptance, but now and again she caught sight of a fierceness in him that rivaled her own. It was apparent when he made small cracks about racist comments that stung with truth beneath the joviality, and in those few moments when he let his guard down enough to reminisce honestly, a thin veneer of regret shone through. He would never show it face to face, but it was there. Buried under jokes about having fetched a good price at three sovereigns or fleeing naked across rooftops from jealous husbands (both of which she believed were as true as the oath he'd given to serve her for the duration), the stories spoke of a past far less glittering and happy than he would have people believe. The Crows' severance package was garbage indeed.
When she asked if the woodcutter he spoke of was his father, his response was uncharacteristically sharp. How was he to know? His mother died in childbirth (and then the joke, naturally, that she was his first victim) but in a rare moment of wistfulness, he spoke of his mother's gloves. They were the one thing of hers he had, and he'd managed to keep them for years until they were discovered and confiscated by the Crows. For all his gaiety and levity, for all his jokes and half-truths and thinly-veiled lasciviousness, there was a tragic undercurrent to his story. She would never say that to his face; no one liked being called on the harsh truth of their upbringing, least of all another elven slave. Try as he might to deny it, that and no more is exactly what he was to the Crows. Why, then, had he taken the assignment to assassinate the last of the Grey Wardens? Had he actually intended to carry out the threat? There were times watching the firelight reflect off his face where she wondered, even though she knew questioning it was a perilous thing indeed. She was stronger than that. She'd already brought promises of allegiance from the Circle of Magi and from King Bhelen of Orzammar and from the army of Redcliffe. Here they were, on the brink of reaching the Dalish at long last, and her stomach was in knots.
Not all of it could simply be attributed to facing the legends of her childhood. No, the bulk of it came in snippets of thoughts along the lines of we're both elves; it makes sense and I wonder if I could erase some of the sadness written in the lines on his face. Dangerous territory, that.
*
The Grey Wardens were warriors.
The Grey Wardens had but one goal: eradicate the Archdemon and in so doing, end the Blight.
The Grey Wardens held in the hands of their very small numbers the key to survival in this land.
The Grey Wardens had no call or room for love or affection. It could neither be fostered nor returned and as Wynne was so eager to point out, Wardens could not afford to form attachments. The one thing Wynne declined to acknowledge was that attachments had already been formed. For better or worse, they were a team. Not a team free of problems, but a workable, worthwhile, and respected team.
The rose, miraculously, hadn't wilted and died. Whether there was some errant Templar magic at work there -- the byproduct of lyrium, perhaps -- or whether it was something else, the rose with its brilliant red petals practically shimmered between her fingers. Mindful of the thorns, she twirled it back and forth, wondering one more time whether or not it was something she should have actually accepted. It seemed like the start of a promise, and she was loath to promise anything to anybody. She'd seen the worst of things on a daily basis at the alienage in Denerim; she'd been responsible for more bloodshed than she knew was possible while crossing Ferelden in search of armies. Orzammar had worn her out. Too many decisions were demanded. Out of heart and out of ideas, she tucked the rose back into her pack in anticipation of yet another Darkspawn attack. Some things were too precious to lose to the battlefield.
Truth be told, she didn't want to slay one more werewolf. She held much more contempt for the Darkspawn and didn't mind cutting them down any more than Bann Vaughan had minded stealing a pair of brides on their wedding day. That brought up an entire host of self-doubt, but she'd have to examine those motives another day. If a way could be found in the present to help those Dalish suffering from the curse without causing more death, she would find it. In the meantime, she drew a weary sword and began the routine effort of hacking away at another wild sylvan. Had she not known they were really disguised rage abominations, she might actually feel badly about it. As it was, there was no time for feelings, either of remorse or of happiness. Months of fighting had eroded her sense of levity to the breaking point, and no end was in sight. It had been a long time since she'd bothered keeping track of victories in battle.
Her skills at lock-picking had been given no choice but to improve, however. When she opened the chest to reveal a pair of Dalish gloves, she paused, the memory of one evening's private conversation flooding back. As soon as Alistair and Leliana moved on ahead, she tapped Zevran on the shoulder.
"Gloves? You're giving me gloves? What for?" His expression made it clear that just one of them remembered what he'd said about his mother and the gloves he'd treasured as a child, but it only took a moment before comprehension dawned over his pretty painted face. All the sharpness on it melted away as he confessed to never having simply been given a gift before, and in that moment, she knew that would have to be remedied, maybe in unexpected ways.
They were both elves, after all, and it made sense. That night in camp when he called her beautiful and offered her a massage for what seemed like the hundredth time, she took him up on it. So much for not falling prey to the assassin after all.
*
Without question Alistair was hurt, but try as she might she could not see fit to bring him into the alienage -- her alienage -- when she went back. The last time she'd been there, humans had been the enemy, and not just as always but in a much more immediate and provocative way. The nerve of Bann Vaughan, stealing elven brides away: did decency mean nothing to him? Were the whores at the Pearl not good enough for him? The answers were clear, and if the treatment the lone human man just beyond the bridge into the alienage received wasn't evidence of exactly how much enmity still existed between Shem and elvenkind, then nothing would. Her decision was sound and good, and Alistair, if he was still talking to her, would receive his apologies later.
Zevran (who claimed never to have seen the inside of a Fereldan alienage before) also stayed at camp at her insistence and pretended not to care. Returning to the alienage was going to be emotional enough without either of them at her side to muddy the waters even further. Not bringing anybody with a vested interest made the whole thing that much simpler: she traveled with trusted companions, no more, no less. With three of them at her side the ensuing fight became just another battle, largely devoid of emotion, although she was certain Zevran would have had something to say to Caladrius about his treatment of their fellow people and there was a great deal at stake for her personally. Instead of hurrying back to Arl Eamon's estate to share the news once it was over, she and her friends sat down to supper with Shianni and Soris and Cyrion, and drank to Valendrian and the others they had been unable to save. This was her first night of respite from Grey Warden duties and the ensuing complications since her recruitment, and it was one she sorely needed.
Bearing arms is strictly prohibited: Elves who have swords will die upon them, read the official notice on the wall of the orphanage across from her father's home. On their way out of the alienage in the wee hours of the morning when most of Denerim was either sound asleep or plotting a neighbor's downfall, she ripped the sign off the wall. Much to her surprise, Sten helped. Drunk again, Oghren peed on the vhenadahl tree, and Shale laughed as quietly as a golem could all the way back to the estate where Kallian Tabris, Grey Warden and conflicted elf of Denerim, stole her way to Zevran's bed.
This time, she stayed until morning.
From in_the_blue
Title: Falling Prey
Fandom: Dragon Age: Origins
Rating: R
Author's Notes: Behind the scenes, a different kind of battle is being waged and Kallian Tabris has some difficult decisions to weigh.
The one thing she couldn't get over regardless of how many ways she rationalized it (it wasn't his fault, he couldn't help it, feeling this way made her no better than those who had oppressed her own people for centuries, it was an old preconceived prejudice, he had the misfortune of being born that way, and so on and so forth) was that Alistair was human. She had to go back very far in her memories to even begin to try to find a time when that wouldn't have mattered to her. As deeply as she looked, she couldn't locate a time and place where it didn't matter. The memory of her wedding day was still too fresh, still too pointed, still too painful. That she hadn't wanted to marry was irrelevant. That Nelaros was probably a good person -- that he had died trying to protect her -- was irrelevant too. The one thing she couldn't shake from her thoughts was the memory of Shianni surrounded by human men (if they could be called that and not animals), roughed up in every possible way, clothes torn, fear and hatred mixed with shame and despair in her eyes. They had treated her cousin like a dog. No, worse than a dog: they had treated her like dirt.
Every time she looked at Alistair she saw Arl Kendells' son. So entitled, laughing at what he and his cronies had done to Shianni. Her cousin asked to keep it between the two of them once Vaughan and the rest had been sent back to be reckoned with by the Maker. She asked it as if she was somehow less of a person or somehow responsible for what those human bastards had done to her. That, Kallian knew, was the moment she had truly become a fighter. It wasn't the knives and secret training Cyrion begged her to keep to herself. That was just icing on the cake. No, it was seeing the pain her cousin was in. How could any elf ever be expected to trust a human after that? How could any female elf ever be expected to look into the face of a human male and not blame him for the actions of every single one of his kind?
While it was certainly true that Alistair was one of the more humble human males she'd met, it didn't excuse him his birthright. Duncan and King Cailan were human too. They had treated her well in their short time together, and for the first time in her twenty-two years she actually found herself wondering if it was possible for a human to be a decent person. Here, after all, were two or possibly three of them. But she put it down to the grit of war, to the impending battle. Surely the other shoe would drop. Surely once they'd won at Ostagar, she would become the elven Grey Warden instead of just the Grey Warden. She expected it: there were always ulterior motives where humans were concerned. They just didn't treat elves -- or anyone else, for that matter -- as equals.
The debt of gratitude she owed Duncan for not turning her in to the Arl's men hung by a very slim thread indeed. Two of their number had not survived the Joining, one at the wrong end of Duncan's own blade, and every moment she expected the same treatment Ser Jory had received. Once Duncan and Cailan were gone (and despite the horror of that, she wasn't entirely surprised they'd been betrayed by yet another human), she expected the same betrayal from Alistair.
That moment never came. Oh, they'd had their differences and while no one could accuse her of having an undeserved chip on her shoulder, she still waited for him to start treating her the way human men always treated female elves. They were commodities, toys, playthings, slaves. It was Alistair's stubborn insistence on deferring to her as an equal that slowly, slowly started opening her eyes to the possibility that it might just be time to revisit the old ingrained prejudices, at least on a case-by-case basis.
In her defense, she held strong to the fact that she'd never lived outside the alienage. In the dark of night when she stood watch at camp, she looked in on a sleeping Alistair to see his arms curled around his backpack like a child seeking solace from its only stuffed animal, and felt a definite pang of something.
*
When it came, the betrayal took an unexpected form. How odd that it would be one of her own and yet not one of her own. She'd never met anyone from far-away Antiva and all she could say was that if that was the best their land had to offer, the Crows were going to have to rethink their strategy.
It might have come as a shock to a privileged human, but elves were used to begging, borrowing, stealing, and bartering for what they wanted; it was simply their way of life and the assassin was most definitely an elf. He may have been gifted with a glib tongue and humorous self-effacement, but the offer he made was decent enough. Maker knew they needed all the help they could get. Morrigan, whose opinion she valued more often than not, didn't approve of the decision to let the Antivan elf live and Alistair hated it from the very moment it happened, but those concerns were duly noted then set aside. Would she watch her food and drink? No more than she had before. As much as anybody else, she believed in the pacts thieves made with one another. There was honor there, and like any other elf, Zevran would not swear a blood oath lightly. He appeared to have no regrets about killing anyone or anything; that alone was enough to rate him highly in her book. There was also the matter of his seeming openness: he had no qualms about exposing the murder plot. Yes, this elf was a true mercenary, and those were rare enough to find. His priorities were transparent enough: he simply wanted to live and that was one thing she understood intimately.
In their very next battle she held back just enough to watch him in action and, true to his word, he not only dispatched the Darkspawn effectively and efficiently with a grace she rarely saw, but he did so in a way that protected her, protected Alistair, and protected Morrigan. The others might not have noticed, but not much in battle escaped her eyes. Afterward, as they washed the blood and gore away in a nearby stream, stifling her laughter became its own task as she listened to the nonsense Zevran spouted at Morrigan. He had the witch's measure quickly enough; she'd missed that overt elven confidence and flirtatiousness. War was serious business and defeating the Darkspawn and ending the Blight of paramount importance, but who was to say that had to come at the expense of a little bit of fun? Who determined that all humor had to be cast aside in the name of glory, the Grey Wardens, and Ferelden? Not her. And clearly, not Zevran.
It didn't take long to realize he had everyone's measure quickly enough, her own included. Forewarned and forearmed, she took it upon herself to return every bit of it, tit for tat, step for step. Her cousins in the alienage would be the first to insist that she had never shied away from playing with fire, but here in the midst of the battle no fire had ever burned with quite so much style as Zevran's.
*
Human though he was, she couldn't help but feel for Alistair. He'd pinned so much hope on meeting his sister. He was fixated on it to such a degree that she couldn't hold it against him when he didn't even acknowledge how dangerous it was for her to step foot back in Denerim. Goldanna was (to put it bluntly) a bitch, and while the encounter really didn't stand a chance of ending well -- this was her home town and she knew the propensities of its citizens -- the unbidden pang she often felt when she considered Alistair took root in her gut at that moment and refused to let go. It grabbed her and like the finest flattery played on the sympathies she couldn't seem to cast aside so readily.
What would Shianni say, she wondered? She could just imagine the conversation. Once her cousin knew she had a soft spot for a human, the teasing would be merciless. There would be bottles of brandy involved -- with Shianni there always were -- and giggling and imaginations run wild far into the night. She missed her cousin; she missed home. Walking the streets of Denerim with renewed purpose, she faltered at the closed and locked alienage gates, powerless to help and feeling truly excommunicated for the first time. Up until then the whole thing had been an adventure, albeit a dangerous one. Yet she had enjoyed privileges none of her alienage cousins knew or were likely ever to know, and for that she felt no small measure of regret.
And Alistair was so crestfallen over Goldanna. All his sister wanted was money; that much was obvious. There was no kinship there, no warmth, not even any interest and he looked so downtrodden and unhappy. The thought now you know how it feels to be so unimportant and so taken for granted never had the privilege of seeing the light of day; for once she held her tongue. Too much: there had been too much pain, too much unhappiness, and too many dashed hopes.
"Here," she told him as casually as she could. "Take this." Steering him away from his sister's home, she pressed the amulet, cracked and lovingly repaired, into his far-too-big, far-too-clumsy, far-too-human hands. He looked down at it, awestruck, before turning his gaze to her with the eyes of a sad puppy.
"This... is my mother's amulet. Why isn't it broken? Where did you find it?"
She explained then about the desk in Arl Eamon's study, ashamed she hadn't given it to him straight away but Maker bless him, recriminations never once seemed to cross Alistair's mind. Instead he marveled that the Arl had found it, repaired it, and kept it. The largely unspoken conclusion he arrived at -- that he must actually have meant something to Eamon after all -- nearly broke her heart and in that moment she realized that Alistair, human flaws and all, was at heart no different from anybody. He was sad, lonely, and forgotten and even his humble insistence that he was used to people not listening when he went on about things was almost more than she could bear.
Yes, she remembered him talking about the amulet. No, she had yet to share with him any similar stories from her own childhood: who was the more imperious one here after all? If she swallowed her pride, would she be willing to learn the lessons he was so unwittingly teaching her?
Yes -- no. No. Maybe she'd be more accepting after the next fight. Maybe after they'd gathered the allies beholden to them by the ancient treaties, there would be time for lessons. Maybe the next time they were alone together in camp, away from the watchful eyes of Wynne, so full of judgment. At least her dog didn't care. His love for her was unconditional, and that was the way she liked it. Her come on, let's go kill some Darkspawn merited Dog's happy bark, rolled eyes from Wynne, and a self-conscious titter from Alistair. She'd never before met a man who giggled so much free of the influence of alcohol.
*
Conventional wisdom in the alienage was that opposites attracted one another. That, she thought, was why her father arranged her marriage to Nelaros, who had seemed about as different from her as he could be. There hadn't really been time to explore that before Vaughan's men slaughtered him. Would she have grown to love him? Would they have been merely companionable as husband and wife? Would she have left him far behind? She would never know, although for surprisingly sentimental reasons, she still carried his wedding ring among her possessions. Her personal belief had always been that like attracted like. The elves she'd befriended had been most like her: brash, outspoken, unafraid, cocky. She'd grown up hearing stories of other elves like that. Not the ones in the alienage, so many of whom seemed resigned to their lot as subservient to humans, but the ones who roamed freely throughout the lands, going where they pleased, doing what they wanted. These were the Dalish, whom she considered to be the original rogues of legend.
Zevran had met and traveled with the Dalish. Although he considered himself Antivan first, he was Dalish by birth and bore their artistry on his face as proof. Watching him move, she wondered how much of his grace was innate and how much (if any) had come from the time he spent wandering with their forest brethren. He was all rogue, Zevran, liberal with compliments and pretty words that could as soon seduce as backstab. It didn't take long for his flirtation to become legendary in camp, much to the chagrin of most of the party members. The one thing that told her it was mere style rather than intent was the way he needled both Wynne and Morrigan mercilessly; there were times she found it impossible to keep from smirking if not laughing outright. Sharp wit was an elven trait, and Zevran was master of that. Everything about him spoke of casual acceptance, but now and again she caught sight of a fierceness in him that rivaled her own. It was apparent when he made small cracks about racist comments that stung with truth beneath the joviality, and in those few moments when he let his guard down enough to reminisce honestly, a thin veneer of regret shone through. He would never show it face to face, but it was there. Buried under jokes about having fetched a good price at three sovereigns or fleeing naked across rooftops from jealous husbands (both of which she believed were as true as the oath he'd given to serve her for the duration), the stories spoke of a past far less glittering and happy than he would have people believe. The Crows' severance package was garbage indeed.
When she asked if the woodcutter he spoke of was his father, his response was uncharacteristically sharp. How was he to know? His mother died in childbirth (and then the joke, naturally, that she was his first victim) but in a rare moment of wistfulness, he spoke of his mother's gloves. They were the one thing of hers he had, and he'd managed to keep them for years until they were discovered and confiscated by the Crows. For all his gaiety and levity, for all his jokes and half-truths and thinly-veiled lasciviousness, there was a tragic undercurrent to his story. She would never say that to his face; no one liked being called on the harsh truth of their upbringing, least of all another elven slave. Try as he might to deny it, that and no more is exactly what he was to the Crows. Why, then, had he taken the assignment to assassinate the last of the Grey Wardens? Had he actually intended to carry out the threat? There were times watching the firelight reflect off his face where she wondered, even though she knew questioning it was a perilous thing indeed. She was stronger than that. She'd already brought promises of allegiance from the Circle of Magi and from King Bhelen of Orzammar and from the army of Redcliffe. Here they were, on the brink of reaching the Dalish at long last, and her stomach was in knots.
Not all of it could simply be attributed to facing the legends of her childhood. No, the bulk of it came in snippets of thoughts along the lines of we're both elves; it makes sense and I wonder if I could erase some of the sadness written in the lines on his face. Dangerous territory, that.
*
The Grey Wardens were warriors.
The Grey Wardens had but one goal: eradicate the Archdemon and in so doing, end the Blight.
The Grey Wardens held in the hands of their very small numbers the key to survival in this land.
The Grey Wardens had no call or room for love or affection. It could neither be fostered nor returned and as Wynne was so eager to point out, Wardens could not afford to form attachments. The one thing Wynne declined to acknowledge was that attachments had already been formed. For better or worse, they were a team. Not a team free of problems, but a workable, worthwhile, and respected team.
The rose, miraculously, hadn't wilted and died. Whether there was some errant Templar magic at work there -- the byproduct of lyrium, perhaps -- or whether it was something else, the rose with its brilliant red petals practically shimmered between her fingers. Mindful of the thorns, she twirled it back and forth, wondering one more time whether or not it was something she should have actually accepted. It seemed like the start of a promise, and she was loath to promise anything to anybody. She'd seen the worst of things on a daily basis at the alienage in Denerim; she'd been responsible for more bloodshed than she knew was possible while crossing Ferelden in search of armies. Orzammar had worn her out. Too many decisions were demanded. Out of heart and out of ideas, she tucked the rose back into her pack in anticipation of yet another Darkspawn attack. Some things were too precious to lose to the battlefield.
Truth be told, she didn't want to slay one more werewolf. She held much more contempt for the Darkspawn and didn't mind cutting them down any more than Bann Vaughan had minded stealing a pair of brides on their wedding day. That brought up an entire host of self-doubt, but she'd have to examine those motives another day. If a way could be found in the present to help those Dalish suffering from the curse without causing more death, she would find it. In the meantime, she drew a weary sword and began the routine effort of hacking away at another wild sylvan. Had she not known they were really disguised rage abominations, she might actually feel badly about it. As it was, there was no time for feelings, either of remorse or of happiness. Months of fighting had eroded her sense of levity to the breaking point, and no end was in sight. It had been a long time since she'd bothered keeping track of victories in battle.
Her skills at lock-picking had been given no choice but to improve, however. When she opened the chest to reveal a pair of Dalish gloves, she paused, the memory of one evening's private conversation flooding back. As soon as Alistair and Leliana moved on ahead, she tapped Zevran on the shoulder.
"Gloves? You're giving me gloves? What for?" His expression made it clear that just one of them remembered what he'd said about his mother and the gloves he'd treasured as a child, but it only took a moment before comprehension dawned over his pretty painted face. All the sharpness on it melted away as he confessed to never having simply been given a gift before, and in that moment, she knew that would have to be remedied, maybe in unexpected ways.
They were both elves, after all, and it made sense. That night in camp when he called her beautiful and offered her a massage for what seemed like the hundredth time, she took him up on it. So much for not falling prey to the assassin after all.
*
Without question Alistair was hurt, but try as she might she could not see fit to bring him into the alienage -- her alienage -- when she went back. The last time she'd been there, humans had been the enemy, and not just as always but in a much more immediate and provocative way. The nerve of Bann Vaughan, stealing elven brides away: did decency mean nothing to him? Were the whores at the Pearl not good enough for him? The answers were clear, and if the treatment the lone human man just beyond the bridge into the alienage received wasn't evidence of exactly how much enmity still existed between Shem and elvenkind, then nothing would. Her decision was sound and good, and Alistair, if he was still talking to her, would receive his apologies later.
Zevran (who claimed never to have seen the inside of a Fereldan alienage before) also stayed at camp at her insistence and pretended not to care. Returning to the alienage was going to be emotional enough without either of them at her side to muddy the waters even further. Not bringing anybody with a vested interest made the whole thing that much simpler: she traveled with trusted companions, no more, no less. With three of them at her side the ensuing fight became just another battle, largely devoid of emotion, although she was certain Zevran would have had something to say to Caladrius about his treatment of their fellow people and there was a great deal at stake for her personally. Instead of hurrying back to Arl Eamon's estate to share the news once it was over, she and her friends sat down to supper with Shianni and Soris and Cyrion, and drank to Valendrian and the others they had been unable to save. This was her first night of respite from Grey Warden duties and the ensuing complications since her recruitment, and it was one she sorely needed.
Bearing arms is strictly prohibited: Elves who have swords will die upon them, read the official notice on the wall of the orphanage across from her father's home. On their way out of the alienage in the wee hours of the morning when most of Denerim was either sound asleep or plotting a neighbor's downfall, she ripped the sign off the wall. Much to her surprise, Sten helped. Drunk again, Oghren peed on the vhenadahl tree, and Shale laughed as quietly as a golem could all the way back to the estate where Kallian Tabris, Grey Warden and conflicted elf of Denerim, stole her way to Zevran's bed.
This time, she stayed until morning.